George Simms

© Kathy Duncan, 2015

George Simms, son of Rev. William and Delilah (Welch) Sims, married Hester Jones.

Information about George Simms is revealed in the following biography of his son, Isaac Newton Simms:

Isaac Newton Simms, who was a well located and handsome residence on section ten, township nineteen, range twenty-one, Custer county, has a well equipped and improved stock and grain farm and is highly respected as an able business man and as a public spirited citizen. He has succeeded through perseverance and thrift and in promoting his own interests, and has assisted in the development and upbuilding of the community. He was born sixteen miles north of Galesburg, Knox county, Illinois, September 12, 1847, and was the eighth born child of George and Hester (Jones) Simms, parents of seven sons and six daughters. The father was a native of North Carolina and the mother of Kentucky. Both the Simms and Jones families had been living in the southern states for many generations before the birth of the individuals mentioned. The grandfather Simms was an early settler near Springfield, Illinois, and the father early located in Knox county, where he was living at the time of the Black Hawk war. He worked several years for Peter Cartwright, the honored pioneer preacher of Illinois. He erected the first log house in Mercer county, was married in Illinois and passed away through the experiences of frontier life, being honored by the personal friendship of Abraham Lincoln, of whom he was an ardent admirer, and for whom he gave his services during his first campaign for the office of president. George Simms died in Illinois in 1865.

Isaac N. Simms was reared in his native state and lived there until his twenty-sixth year, receiving the usual educational advantages of farmer's sons and early helping with the work on the home farm. He was married in Knoxville, Illinois, September 19, 1872, to Miss Clarinda Chilson, daughter of William and Harriet (Potter) Chilson, her father a native of New Jersey and her mother of Ohio. Her grandfather Potter erected the first saw and grist mill in Warren county, Illinois, and his daughter (Mrs. Chilson) was in Chicago when there were but three log houses in the town. After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Simms spent one year in Illinois, and then moved to Kansas, where he lived five years in Shawnee county, and a like period in Wabaunsee county. In the fall of 1883, he came by prairie schooner, over the "overland trail" to Custer county, and his wife and their two sons, Theodore N. and George. They reached their destination in November and purchased the Temp Merchant homestead on section ten, township nineteen, range twenty-one, which was one of the original homesteads on Victoria creek. Isaac Merchant had come there with his family in the early seventies, and during the Indian uprising of 1876 a fort of hewed logs was erected on the homestead. these logs were afterward used in erecting the Simms home. Six or seven acres of trees had been set out by Temp Merchant and Mr. Simms and family also set out trees, so that there was a splendid grove surrounding the house, and water from the springs of Victoria creek is piped over the farm here and there by a good system of water works, so that the home is located in a picturesque spot. The fine flowing springs add to the beauty and charm of the place; some of the trees are more than three feet in diameter, through which are interspersed many fine cedars, some of the apple trees having limbs over thirty feet in length.

Mr. and Mrs. Simms have but two children. George is married and living just west of the home farm, and he and his wife have one child; Theodore, married and living in Colorado, as two children. The reader is referred to the sketch of George W. Simms in this work.

The mother of Mr. Simms came to Custer county in 1881 with her married daughter, Hettie, now Mrs. Edward Bishop, and took up a homestead on which she proved her claim. Her death occurred in Broken Bow, the interment being in Gates cemetery, where she was in her eighty-seventh year, a woman who had lived in a frontier home most of her life, greatly loved by all who knew her. She left one son, David B., who lives at Arnold, Custer county and her daughter, Mrs. Martha G. Herbert, lives at Broken Bow, these being the only ones in the county besides Isaac N. Of the thirteen children in the family six sons and one daughter now survive.

Mr. Simms is one of the most enterprising of citizens and he and his family have made many friends in the community.

[Source: Compendium of History, Reminiscence, and Biography of Nebraska: Containing a History of the State of Nebraska, Alden Pub. Co., 1912]